


and when it's over, I'm still awake

by esbis



Series: out of time and out of place [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Future Fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other, the war is over and they're trying to adjust to life on earth now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 15:46:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8407462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esbis/pseuds/esbis
Summary: They relearn how to not be scared of love. They fall back into gentler, longer kisses: in the dark kitchen at midnight, dancing to a song they remember from high school; in the morning, as a thank you for being alive.Keith's love has always been like the sea, from raging fierce to calm and soothing. The sea is him, is home; in space, it reminds him of the beaches and oceans he never got tired of. On Earth, it reminds him of Blue, unyielding and compassionate.Home is where the heart is, after all.





	

i.

Early mornings at an airport lull him into a kind of sleepy, pleased haze; the quiet whirring of wheels and the murmur of people half-awake subdues the excitement he harbors for a trip across seas and land. Lance, young and bright-eyed and barely six, turns his eyes upon the bleeding golden sky in favor or nagging his siblings for something or other.

He slips out of the cocoon of sweaters his sister has swathed him in and sits on the cold, cold floor in front of the massive windows, and beyond the terminals and the jagged city skylines there is the endless white-blue sky with its belly striped red and peach and gold, dawn scurrying back into the edge of nothingness to give way to morning.

The first time Lance truly yearns to touch the sky, he hasn't even flown on a plane yet.

 

ii.

It's been eight, ten, twelve years since he's last touched the guitar -- his guitar, an old thing he got from his uncle who taught him himself -- he couldn't relearn the chords to songs the way he used to, if he wanted to. 

It wasn't the same with a couple metal fingers on his left hand and three on his right, little parts of him the Galra had taken years and lifetimes ago. He strums harder and the strings bring faint vibrations, not sensations, tingling up the veins down his arm. As if the irregular beats can drown and overpower memories of the sharp clip-clap of boots, the beeping of timers in the interrogation room, the tapping he breathlessly counts along to to keep himself awake.

He tried learning how music was made on other planets. A lyre at a celebratory ceremony in the planet Lassif'kha, fingers guided by the glowing strings and light percussions. Coran's favorite music always involved an instrument played by Gnatas at pubs, small string instruments with eleven strings that Lance's fingers were too big for. Pidge had gifted him some sort of high-tech, tricked-out guitar that was more like a machine than a musical instrument, but he was grateful nonetheless. It was destroyed by an alien he couldn't even remember; he wonders if the dent on the smooth walls of the castle's ballroom is still there.

A string snaps. Lance sets the guitar down. His hands have spent more time destroying and killing than creating by now.

 

iii.

"Keith."

It's like the sun in his arms, burning warm into the curve of his neck and the crook of his elbows, the spaces between his ankles where their legs twine together. He suddenly feels awake, wondering how long he's been aware of his surroundings.

"Keith, wake up." _Before Allura sends alarms blaring and we end up running half-dressed into the control room again_.

The other paladin lifts his head up groggily. Warm. He is warmth, seeping through the damp black shirt. Lance brushes his hair back to find sleepy golden eyes -- Galra yellow --

The scream rips from his throat scorching white hot before rough hands clamp around his neck and it feels like black stars, dark and prickling heat swarming over his eyes like static. Between the black speckles, he can see melting, melting, purple bubbling over red meat over cracked white skull to pool like lava at his chest and stomach and his mind screams of Blue or Hunk or mother or sister and brother and Keith, Keith's name is the one that never leaves his gaping mouth because the next thing he does is shoot right out of bed, gasping like he was drowning.

Sweat rolling down his temples and back and neck. They never leave the air conditioner on because the chill reminds him of the emptiness of space and shuttles and how there was no sun in the endless, eternal black. 

Their room is painted cream and blue, white and yellow. The walls do not glow with turquoise stripes like the castle does. This is Earth. This is their house. 

Keith approaches him the way one would a wounded, shaking animal, wraps his arms around him the moment he falls apart into heaving bursts of tears. He cannot forgive him for what has been done, but he does anyway. Apologizes to the tens of Galra children that died on that night. His sorry was lost to the cacophony of shrilled, agonized screams, blinded by the yellow eyes that glowed brightest right before they dimmed.

Keith holds him and they rock together, slowly, like a metal boat in a river of oozing purple-red lava.

 

iv.

"Oh my god, I found that old blog of mine," Lance laughs, fingers perched over the keyboard. "Mostly it was about me wanting to travel. Mostly it was Europe or some tropical islands..."

Hunk busies himself with piling pineapple chunks to resemble a pyramid on Pidge's plate while they watch with artificial eyes. They're in Hawaii now, in Hunk's childhood house, like they always planned of doing since their Garrison days. Sunlight cuts squares of translucent green and yellow past the colored glass and onto the tiled floor; outside, far away, the ocean calls. Lance thinks about the conch shell he once traded for, now floating somewhere in space among an archipelago of asteroids.

"Funny how we've been to dozens of galaxies fighting aliens and saving the universe and I haven't even set foot in _China_ yet."

"Next year, then?" Pidge asks, stretching languidly.

"I guess." It's still strange not being able to just run to the hangers for Blue or a speeder to take him wherever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

 

v.

Twelve years is a long time to get close enough to people to not be embarrassed of crying. Lance lets his tears run freely when he sees it. The small, mottled blue-green dot suspended in velvety black.

Earth.

Everything he's ever known and ever missed, all the people he's ever seen in passing and the places he's always dreamt of, the sea, the sky, the land, the air. Twelve years. Twelve years of war and death and rebirth via cryopod, years that hardened hands and hearts and bonds, years that separated the words "Earth" from "home" and left him grasping for somewhere or something to attach the latter to. 

He yells, laughs loudly through his tears as Keith tackles him, " _we're going home_ " echoing between their laughter as he spins them around, room bright, falling to the ground in a heap of jumbled limbs and emotions.

"We're going home."

 

vi.

The Garrison had a plaque for all of them. Lance pays no attention. The engraved, shiny metal is nothing because they know nothing; an award they presented because they are back, they had survived, but for all the others believe it was probably just a hoax and they had spent the last decade underground or in Mongolia or wherever, so no, Lance is not at all touched.

In Senyata 9 there had been a feast. He remembers the blaring trumpets and woven silver baskets laden with coiled fruits, an endless river of rich, sweet ambrosia. The Arusians were sincere and wholehearted in their ceremonies of gratitude. There were statues of Voltron molded of unbreakable glass in the moon of Wexe, an epic of their bravery added to the Faixirese's ever-growing collection of folktales. 

The rebels from Altea, all young half-breeds who held their heads high despite all the words of their dead species, had offered him their most sincere thanks. Allura and Coran, especially. No fame and recognition on Earth, even doubled, would mean as much as the pride in their eyes meant for him, for his friends, for his family.

He keeps the certificates in the back of his closet, and the Alteans' badge on his bedside table.

 

vii.

He forgets what peace is like. No years of life spent in quiet, in therapy, with family, with anything would bring it back. It's fine, he tells his sister through a hoarse throat when he brings him water. I'm used to it, he assures his father when they sat him down to talk.

Years later and Keith is still the one who has more trouble sleeping, so he watches. He's watched Lance sleep through the years; noticed how gradually the crease between his brows formed and the lines of his back stiffened, how the teeth-grinding and sleep-talking had increased over time. 

How easy it was to wake him now; a small sound enough to snap his eyes open, nerves alight with the acquired instinct to fight and reach for a bayard that was no longer there. 

He's there when Lance jolts awake, shoulders shaking with his voice as he heaved his way through the vestiges of terror through sobs or screams. Keith knows it all now. How guilty he is for the dead Arusians and Galran children and for all the times he couldn't save them, the last people he loved. Replays of words wept against cryopod walls and makeshift gravestones.

How angry he is at Zarkon, at the Druids and their cruel, despicable curiosity -- the scars they gave Shiro and the eyes they took from Pidge. He cries it out, clenching and unclenching his fists and despising the cold metal substituting his fingers. They've taken nearly enough for a lifetime.

In the morning he makes Keith waffles and says sorry over the little round dining table. It's fine, Keith tells him, reaching for his hand. I'm used to it.

 

viii.

He loves Keith and Keith loves him, just not the way they used to.

It used to be fire, searing and all consuming in the form of bickering and teeth against necks. Leaving marks. Competing for the last laugh. The longer kisses, in case they wouldn't get to do it again. There was always anger and urgency and fierceness alongside love. Red was the color of beating hearts and bloodied hands, heat forming a haze over the intertwined bodies on the bed and on the battlefield.

They've grown up since then. The passionate hormonal teenager love faded into something that was generally an instinct to keep each other alive, a quiet flame that warmed instead of burned. 

Lance relearns that love isn't supposed to hurt or to be a war; Keith learns not to bare his teeth at everything as if they're going to take Lance from him again. They've stopped leaving marks long ago because any sign of someone being important to you was damn near a giant glowing sign screaming " _I'm here, I'm important to him, torture me in front of him if he won't say anything and he'll spill in an instant_ ".

They relearn how to not be scared of love. They fall back into gentler, longer kisses: in the dark kitchen at midnight, dancing to a song they remember from high school; in the morning, as a thank you for being alive; at any time of the day pressed to scarred knuckles and metal fingers, ears and foreheads and cheeks. 

Keith's love has always been like the sea, from raging fierce to calm and soothing. The sea is him, is home; in space, it reminds him of the beaches and oceans he never got tired of. On Earth, it reminds him of Blue, unyielding and compassionate.

Home is where the heart is, after all.

 

ix.

"Lance, honey, it's time to go."

His mother's voice is gentle but clear, a bell sounding down the halls of the churches of his childhood, cutting through the velvety whirr-clack white noise of the airport. Slowly, very slowly, he rouses from his stupor. Remnants of a dream cling to his lashes like tears. Flying through space, robots, large cats. For a small, insignificant hair of a moment, there is nothing but a crushing mixture of emptiness and anticipation and everything else.

He clings to her tightly.

His eyes remain curious and longing for the pillowy clouds and endless spaces, a desire to break beyond the blue as easily as he could the surface of water. As if beyond it there would be home and love and life. 

In the waking morning, the world is red and blue and vast the first time Lance takes to the sky.

 

 

_wherever there is you;  
i will be there too_

**Author's Note:**

> this was the first thing i had written in almost a year. I missed writing so much, but I'm not as good as I used to be, ahah.
> 
> I had always hated thinking about what everyone's future would be like, adjusting to life on earth if they ever got back. But I like the pain. Apparently. I stayed up until 1:45 reading future fics, churned this out in some ugly angst-fueled craze at 2:30, and here we are. wow.
> 
> the title and lyrics at the end are from Silhouettes by Of Monsters and Men.


End file.
